Their Results Mentoring program may be sold out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t gain some great useful information off of a couple of webinars (online seminars) that Steve McKnight has recently held.
If you head on over to the propertyinvesting.com site and scroll right down to the bottom, there are 2 webinars available for download in MP3 format.

• 6 Essential Rules to Starting a Property Portfolio
• The #1 Property Investing Mistake

These 2 files (about 15MB each) have some great property investing info in them.

Check them out 

Wealth Retreat 2007 will be held on the Gold Coast in May (the 2nd -5th). Wealth Retreat is not for everyone and not for begining investors. It is designed for people who are already well on their way but want to take their investing to the next level.

“If you want to learn about advanced tax structures, innovative superannuation advice and sophisticated investment strategies, then Wealth Retreat 2007 is for you.”

If you are at this level then check out the site and register your interest for Wealth Retreat 2007.

If you don’t think you are quite at that level but would like to know some more and get some free information about property investing, trusts and taxes then your in luck, because the Wealth Retreat website has 3 MP3 downloads available of 3 separate tele-seminars that were recently held.

1. Hear Michael Yardney explain how to take advantage of the opportunities the next property boom will bring.
2. Hear tax expert Tony Melvin explain how property investors can benefit from using trusts + lots more.
3. Hear tax expert Ed Chan answer questions from the audience on property investment.

Head on over to the site to download these. Note, in total there is about 165MB to download… I hope you have broadband

Fat Prophets latest free report is on the Japanese Property market and how you can profit from it.

Property markets in Japan have been deflating since their peak in 1990. Favorable conditions have once again come to the Japanese property markets and things are finally turning around.

To read a whole lot more on this subject check out the Fat Prophets Report and also take a good look at BJT (Babcock and Brown Japan Property Trust) listed on the ASX.

Domain.com.au has a new feature available for all you Aussie real estate investors out there. For $5.95 a pop you can input any address in Australia and find out its previous sale prices. This can be some pretty handy information if your wanting to look up the past growth of a property your interested in, or even if you just want to find out what the house down the road sold for.

If your a first time user, you must register. Do it here.

After that, create a new message from your mobile phone with the full address of the house that you want its price history. eg 24 Falcon Rd Walkerville 5081.  Send this number to 19 767 474.

After a few seconds you’ll be sent back the recent sales history with prices, or if they have no data they will SMS you a suburb median price report comparing that suburb to surrounding suburbs.

For a limited time this SMS service is $3.95 per use rather than $5.95 (billed to your phone account). So if you need this info and your real estate agent won’t provide it for you, then check it out.

You might have heard of Hans Jakobi, he’s been around for many years and taught thousands of people the ways of real estate. Hans is also a successful author. He is currently offering a free 10 part mini course that is delivered every day or so by email.

Here’s just some of what you’ll learn in the mini course:

• How you can find properties that grow your wealth
• How you can control the valuation process and maximise your borrowing potential
• How you can utilise creative financing strategies most people don’t know about
• How you can protect your hard earned money from lawsuits - or worse
• How you can use the power of leverage to buy multiple properties
• How you can easily and safely invest internationally

If your at all not happy with what is being sent to you, you can unsubscribe at anytime. But I’m sure you’ll be pleased, as I was.Hans values this mini course at $149 so head on over to his site now and sign up for your free deliveries.

The answer, is actually less than you might think. A million dollars just doesn’t go as far as it used to.

I’m sure you’ve often thought to yourself, if I just had a million dollars I’d buy the house of my dreams. A huge mansion on the beach with 20 rooms etc… Well, in some parts of the world this dream is still very doable, but in many of the worlds most popular cities you might have to settle for a 1 bedroom apartment!

Personally, I like the look of the Central and South American offerings. Ocean views, my own swimming pool, and of course the maids residence.

Any way you can check out just what 1 Million $US will buy you around the world over at forbes.com.

Check it out in Pictures or the Video.

This question remained in a state of confusion, mystery and frustration for me for several years.
Just like most new people to the world of property investing I didn’t even consider structure when I bought my first property. It was just put in Joint tenants, 50/50 mine and my wifes. Years later when I sold this piece of land it cost us thousands of dollars in extra capital gains tax due to the lack of structure set up. Also at risk during the whole time I owned this property was everything my wife and I owned. If we had have been sued for something happening on our investment property, everything we owned would have been up for grabs as we had no asset protection with the property in our own names.

As I’ve outlined above, the 2 main advantages of setting up a structure for your property investing and not putting them in your own name are:

1. Tax benefits
2. Asset Protection

So when I say structure, what do I mean and what types of structures are available?
This is originally where I got confused, and it is still very easy to get confused as you will be told many different ways by different people. Basically the structure options that are available are:

• Company
• Trusts (there are dozens of types)
• Discretionary (Family Trust)
• Unit Trust
• Hybrid Trust (A cross between the above 2)
• Self Managed Superannuation Fund

With a Company, you pay a flat rate of tax of 30%. It offers some asset protection, but losses such as negative gearing are trapped in the company and cannot be claimed by the individuals. You also miss out on the 50% capital gains tax discount after 12 months.

Self Managed Superannuation Funds are a type of trust that are very usable in property investing, but I’ll go more into detail with them another time.
Trusts: A discretionary or family trust also trap losses in the trust not allowing you to claim negative gearing.
A unit trust I believe allows you to claim negative gearing but is not flexible in the way you can disperse income like a discretionary trust.

This brings us to the Hybrid Trust. But not just any Hybrid Trust, the trust that took me all these years to find and locate and one I actually purchased and am using is called strangely enough the Property Investors Trust. It is a Hybrid trust that allows you to claim your negative gearing and also disperse any profits to whom ever you like within your family, either by blood or marriage relations. The trust also does not expire in 70 years like many other trusts. This trust is built from the ground up for property investing.
In Australia there is one place that sells it as they set it up and copyrighted it. You can get yours from Chan and Naylor Accountants. The cost isn’t cheap ($1700), but over many years will save you thousands of dollars. To become a Chan and Naylor customer you must also first complete their financial health check assessment ($395) to see where you are and to create a plan for your future. I found that very worth while and exciting!

For better asset protection, you may find you are recommended to create a company to be trustee for your trust, this will add another $1085 to your bill, but may save you everything you own in the future.

After speaking with Chan and Naylor they may recommend something else for you, but the above is what I ended up with, and if your only doing property investing, you will probably end up with the same structure.

Remember, you need to set up your structure before you start acquiring property as it is expensive to move ownership of properties later. If you already have investment properties in your own names, don’t worry, just speak to the guys at Chan and Naylor.
I hope this has saved you several years of confusion. Head on over to Chan and Naylor’s website for more information.

Investors Direct was started by Bill Zheng in 2001. They are primarily mortgage brokers, but specialise in only providing finance to property investors and developers. They do not provide finance for home buyers (live in).

Investors direct can help you in these areas:

• Financial Strategies
• Application Approval
• Loan Processing
• Re-Financing
• First Time Investors
• Experienced Investors
• Property Developers

The one thing I found that was great with these guys is when you first contact them you provide them with all your current financial details and then they have a meeting with you either face to face or over the phone. The meeting isn’t just for telling you what you can borrow etc, they go right into what you want to achieve with your property investing and help you plan how to do it with finance.

Investors Direct are also the only company in Australia able to bring you the Cash Flow Mortgage. This mortgage basically allows you to captialise some of you interest over the first few years back onto your loan so you can afford to own high growth low yielding property. And with high growth property the idea is that the growth in your property over the next few years will far out weigh the differed interest. This loan is available for Full Doc and Low Doc.
The loan is explained in much more detail at this web site: http://www.cashflowmortgage.com.au/
I highly recommend you check this mortgage out. If you are struggling with a negatively geared property, this mortgage could be your life line to able you to keep your investment and not have to sell.

Investors Direct also offer a mentoring program, monthly seminars and a free monthly newsletter with great articles that you should defiinetly sign up for. Click here for all the details.

These guys can help you take your investing via finance to the next level!

I was reminded of some of these simple tips last week at Aspire’s Investors update evening in Adelaide.

When looking for your next property, the easiest way to find the next growth area is to see what has grown strong recently. You can get this data from your local real estate institute. Once you have a list of the out performing suburbs, have a look at the surrounding suburbs in these areas. If those areas have had limited growth recently, theres a good chance that the strong growth from the neighboring suburb will flow onto the surrounding ones. This is known as the ripple effect.
Property prices usually rise first in the inner city and beach side areas that have the more expensive and exclusive residences. The ripple then flows out further into the suburbs and eventually into the country. Generally once you have seen large rises in rural real estate and then that comes off the boil, you know that the current property cycle has come to an end and another is about to begin.

Another tip is to get stats on average rental incomes and vacancies in the areas of your city. This data can help you to decide where to invest for yield (cash flow - low growth) or for capital growth (low yield). This can also help you to identify areas that will have a higher rental demand keeping your investment constantly occupied.

My last tip is to look for areas that have new infrastructure going in or about to go in. New public transport systems and road ways can open up areas to new growth and interest. You can get information on these things from government transport and infrastructure web sites.

Hope some of these things will help you out with your next property investment.

eChoice Home Loans are basically finance brokers that can help you out with all your home buying and property investing finance. The reason I mention them is that they have a free newsletter that comes out every month with a housing market update and other handy articles. And if you don’t want to sign up for another newsletter, you can just visit their site and click on the state you are after an update on.

Check it out here